Islamic Teorrists (Not) in Mexico

I'll file this away for the next time that someone uses the Muslim terrorist sneaking through Mexico as a straw man:

Mexico says it has arrested 12 people on terrorism charges in the years since the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S., but an official said none were linked to Muslim extremist groups like al-Qaida nor were any planning to strike in the United States.

Officials from both nations say there hasn't been any sign of the southern U.S. border becoming an entry point for terrorists, as had been feared after the suicide jetliner hijackings that struck New York and Washington.

Michael Chertoff follows up with a dispatch from the Department of Duh:

In a speech Wednesday on international terrorism threats, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the biggest threat in Mexico is likely the powerful drug trade, in which gangs target both police and civilians and often behead their enemies.

"These enterprises may currently be criminal enterprises, but we cannot rule out the possibility in the future that they may take on a more political coloration," he said.

Weekend Scraps

Two competing cards offer four mildly compelling bouts this weekend. Each of them has a fighter who I really hope will win, but I can't bring myself to pick either. Edner Cherry and Nate Campbell are similar in that they are both entertaining pros who have had their ups and downs, occassionally looking great, other times really average. Campbell finally broke through in a championship fight with a decision win over Juan Diaz last year, which made lots of boxing folks happy. He deserved the win, and Cherry does, too. Unfortunately, I doubt Cherry has enough to get by Timothy Bradley (though Bradley is still a virtual unknown; if Cherry is ever going to win a belt, this is the fight), and I also think Juan Guzmán will stink it out against Campbell, flicking just enough jabs to take the decision in a miserable fight.

In the other bouts, I like Sergio Mora to repeat his win over Vernon Forrest, and I think Juan Manuel Márquez gains a decisive decision victory over Joel Casamayor.

Gancho Boxing Inc is 10-4 in 2008 predictions.

Shafer Dissects

Jack Shafer is at his analogical best in his postmortem on the Gibson-Palin interview extravaganza:

Palin attempts to fake it for 25 seconds with a swirl of generalities before Gibson, showing all the gentleness of a remedial social studies teacher, interjects.

Later:

But she can't answer the question, and she won't dismiss it. Instead she slows the interview to a crawl again, dribbling and dribbling the ball but refusing to take the shot.

The interview showcases a big difference between Obama and Palin. Both are riding higher than their résumé would warrant in part because of a celebrity-type public fascination, and neither has the ideal amount of experience, but experience and preparedness are different. Obama's never given such a shallow, uninformed answer to such an important question. Maybe it was just nerves or a desire to avoid slamming the president, but flailing on the Bush Doctrine raises some enormous questions.

SSP Suffering

The federal government's Secretariat of Public Security is at the center of a controversy thanks to the revelation that one of the kidnappers of Fernando Martí, Lorena González, was a federal police officer. An undersecretary then denied that fact, but as contradictory evidence mounted, Secretary Genaro García Luna admitted that it was true a couple of days ago. The presence of a supposedly vetted federal officer in such a high-profile crime is a huge blow to the Secretariat's prestige, but García Luna says that there won't be any heads rolling as a result. It's especially damaging in that it involves not just inefficacy but dishonesty.

Mexico City's Sometimes Competent Cops

Jorge Chabat makes the logical observation that while the government of Mexico City has performed admirably in taking down the kidnapping band La Flor, it is at the same time frustrating to see such a sweeping and effective response applied so rarely. He also points out that making an impression on security will put any Mexican politician on the path to bigger and better things.

What is absolutely worrying is that the efficiency showed en the case of this criminal band hasn't been seen in many other cases of kidnapping in Mexico City.

Whatever the case, we hope that, with the expectation of winning support for an eventual presidential candidacy in 2012, the Ebrard government keeps offering results in combating delinquency. He'll win, and the citizens will, too.

If they can do it for Martí, why not for everyone? Obviously some crimes get more attention than others, and the kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old heir will get the police's attention more than a dead prostitute, but why does the distinction have to be so great? Clearly, Mexican police are capable of police work, so why the 1-2 percent clearance rate? Ebrard (and anyone else with a presidential ambition) should be looking for answers.

We're Wet! (Or, What Passes for News in the Desert)

The Río Nazas, normally as dry as a Connecticut town on a Sunday, is flowing, and Laguneros are ecstatic! For the first time in 17 years, after a rainy July and August and the subsequent release of dams upriver (because updryriverbed isn't a word), the Río Nazas is really a río.

He Owns the Whole World

Not quite, but Carlos Slim, who just purchased 6.4 percent of the New York Times, making him the third largest investor, is seeming more and more like a potential James Bond villain. Oddly, despite his enormous wealth and TelMex's monopolistic practices here in Mexico, Slim has a decent reputation.

It's On!

Via ESPN: Cristian Mijares will face Vic Darchinyan on November 1st for a pile of 115-pound belts. Darchinyan has a bit of Naseem Hamed in him, and I think Mijares does him like Marco Antonio Barrera. 

Silly

Imagen Radio and Excelsior have an online/phone poll with the following question:

The United States says that in order to end kidnapping in Mexico, it's necessary to eliminate drug trafficking. Do you agree?

So far, 60 percent of respondents are in the wrong, i.e. answering yes, they do agree.

I'm not familiar with the statement that the question refers to, and it's possible that the person making it meant that Mexico should look at drug trafficking and kidnapping as related phenomenon, that it should treat them as part of the same broad problem. That's laudable. However, the poll seems to imply that Mexico will always have kidnappers until it no longer has drug traffickers. That's laughable. Drug-traffickers and smugglers have thrived in northern Mexico for more than a century; rampant kidnapping is a relatively recently trend. The United States has its own problems with drug traffickers, but kidnapping syndicates like those operating in Mexico don't exist. Essentially, the opposite of the poll's premise is true: eliminating drug trafficking will almost certainly cause a spike in abductions. As Mexico cracks down on drug trafficking, cartels look elsewhere for sources of cash, holding rich folks for ransom being a logical option. As we have seen in Tijuana, Torreón, and other cities that don't begin with the letter T, separating drug smugglers from their product often precipitates a rise in kidnapping. 

Unsettling

The photo album of Sergio Ortiz, the alleged leader of the kidnapping band La Flor, included, alongside pictures of Fernando Martí and various bestiality snapshots, photos of President Felipe Calderón. It seems far-fetched to imagine that these guys had ideas about kidnapping the president, but it sure would be nice to get a declaration from Ortiz, who is now recuperating from gunshot wounds and unable to speak.

Post on Mexico

The Washington Post has a somewhat aimless editorial about violence in Mexico today, telling us that more Mexicans die in drug battles than NATO troops in Afghanistan. (This is a really misleading comparison; you should compare it to how Afghans die violent deaths.) After pointing out that "U.S. money and weapons are fueling this war. Billions of dollars from American drug users flow to the syndicates, along with thousands of weapons smuggled across the border," the piece argues for a greater American commitment. "The new U.S. funding should help, but the next administration in Washington would do well to explore whether more assistance can be provided in training Mexican forces, much as U.S. advisers have helped professionalize the Colombian army. More must be done, too, to curtail the cross-border gun trafficking."

Fatigue

I had this feeling four years ago as well: for any consumer of the American news media, a presidential election is the most intellectually stifling time on the calendar. It's an addiction: the election's fascinating and important, so I can't stop reading about it, but every original word that could possibly be written or said about it is already on the page or in the air. We're just repeating ourselves, and we have been for months. It's like a fantastic restaurant right by your house that all of a sudden sells nothing but one delicious turkey sandwich for eight months. Yup, that's the metaphor.

Dressing For Success

Mexico's abysmal mail service now has abysmal uniforms to match. 

Doomsaying Leftists

Leo Zuckermann takes on the disturbing recent tactic of the extreme Mexican left to refer ominously to the fall of Calderón's government. Since Mexico operates under a presidential rather than a parliamentary system, this would necessarily trigger a grave national crisis, a la Watergate, or worse. The leftists accuse sympathy-seeking Calderón and company of being the genesis of the scandal. I find that unlikely, given that Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and others brought up the matter of Calderón's fall, and it's a topic that has obsessed the radical left since Calderón's election. In any event, it's horribly irresponsible.

Media Versus Calderón

Jorge Zepeda Patterson takes Felipe Calderón to task for criticizing reporters for reporting only the bad news in Mexico. Sound familiar?

I don't know what the context of Calderón's comment was, but I'm inclined to think it all but indefensible. The Mexican press jumps all over splashy arrests and drug seizures, so if he's talking about beat reporters, the criticism is simply false. If Calderón was talking about opinion columnists and security analysts, he is right that may be inclined to take a more critical view of Mexican security, but their job is to put news stories like those linked above into the proper context. Right now, that context is a downer.

Sound Advice

Dan Rafael comments on the one-minute blowout of sensation Amir Khan this weekend: 

Rule No. 1 of boxing -- never, ever, ever, ever, ever match your fighter with a Colombian puncher. They have pulled numerous upsets and this one is just another to add to the list (think Alejandro Berrio and Epifanio Mendoza, for example).

I'd bet no one else is going to make that mistake with a cash cow like Khan again for a long, long time. The decision looked questionable beforehand, and insane afterward. 

Popularity Contests

Excelsior has a fun popularity meter that combines an official's fame with his public approval to give us a numerical value of his popularity. (They should sell the formula to high schools.) Today, it takes aim at the PRD. Making a mockery of my use of the masculine possessive pronoun in the previous sentence, Amalia García finished first, with a score of 6.1. Fifty-six percent of respondents view the Zacatecas governor favorably or very favorably. El Peje, despite the benefit of 95 percent public recognition, came in tenth, or dead last. His favorable/very favorable percentage was a mere 32 percent. Marcelo Ebrard was right in the middle in fifth place, with a 47 percent favorable/very favorable rating. 

Another Lunker

Mexican authorities have arrested the alleged leader of the kidnapping band La Flor, the group behind the abduction and murder of Fernando Martí. He is a 63-year-old ex-police officer.

Valdés Agrees

Francisco Valdés opposed both the provision for the recall of elected officials and the prohibition on reelection in yesterday's column.

Things I Don't Like

Mexico's prohibition on reelection.

Big Fish Caught

The Mexican army has reeled in a leader of the Gulf cartel's operation in Tabasco, Alfredo Sánchez Hinojosa. I noticed that the article in El Universal (like my first sentence) accepts the premise of Sánchez's role in the organization without using a hedge like "allegedly."

The Count

According to figures from the Mexican government obtained by El Universal, the Secretariat of Defense has arrested 20,000 people on drug charges since 2000. The highest number of arrests was in 2007, with about 3,500. It'd be interesting to see some more detail on those numbers: conviction rate, average sentence, recidivism, et cetera. 

Qualifying

Mexico's selección looked about a million times better in a dirty 3-0 win over Jamaica than in their squeaker against Honduras a couple of weeks ago. I'm not convinced that Dos Santos and Vela should be starting up front together, but both looked a lot more comfortable this time around, especially Vela. 

As is customary here, the US matchup with Cuba wasn't televised, but I did catch some highlights that looked to be filmed by the same spy plane that surveilled the missiles in '62. Even from 80,000 feet, a 1-0 win for the Americans looks bad.